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Kenya Rushes to Evacuate Citizens From Israel
Kenya Tuesday October 17 started the evacuation of its citizens from Israel. The evacuation came 10 days after the outbreak of war between Israel and the Hamas group in Gaza.
The first batch of 11 evacuees arrived later on Wednesday at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.
According to Roseline Njogu, a Principal Secretary (PS) in charge of diaspora affairs at Kenya’s foreign affairs ministry, currently, there are more than 500 Kenyans registered with the Kenyan embassy in Israel, with a big number of them living in areas that remain safe and unaffected by the ongoing hostilities.
The conflict between Israel and Gaza started 7 October with an unprecedented assault on Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip by Palestinian Hamas militants. Israel has since hit back with air strikes on Gaza. Israel is also preparing its troops for a ground offensive.
At the onset of the conflict, some Kenyan nationals left independently. Kenyans in Israel primarily consist of students and individuals on religious pilgrimages.
Iran Warns of Military Offensive Against Israel
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tuesday that “no one can stop resistance forces” if Israel keeps up its bombardment of Gaza in response to the shock October 7 attack by Hamas.
“If the crimes of the Zionist (Israeli) regime continue, Muslims and resistance forces will become impatient, and no one can stop them,” Khamenei said.
Iran has been in close contact with its regional allies, including Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and pro-Tehran Iraqi militias, since Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, breaking through the heavily fortified border from Gaza and killing more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.
Israel has responded with a devastating air and artillery bombardment of Hamas-controlled Gaza that has killed at least 2,750 Palestinians, most of them civilians.
“No matter what the Zionist regime does, it cannot make up for the scandalous failure it suffered,” Khamenei said.
Israel has deployed tens of thousands of troops to its border with Gaza in preparation for a full-scale ground offensive.
Israel has told some 1.1 million Gazans — nearly half the territory’s population of 2.4 million — to leave the north of the densely populated enclave, in anticipation of the operation.
Tehran has repeatedly warned that a ground invasion of Gaza will be met with a response on other fronts — prompting fears of a wider conflict that could draw in other countries.
On Monday, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian spoke of possible “pre-emptive action” against Israel by the “resistance front” while President Ebrahim Raisi said time was running out to reach a political solution.
Tehran, which financially and militarily backs Hamas militants, celebrated the Hamas assault but insisted it was not involved.
(Additional reporting by AFP)
US Blames Hamas for Hospital Attack in Gaza, Other World Leaders Call for Caution
U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Israel on Wednesday pledging solidarity in its war against Hamas and saying that a blast that killed huge numbers of Palestinians at a Gaza hospital appeared to have been caused not by Israel but by its foes.
The fireball that engulfed the Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital on Tuesday evening wrecked White House plans for Biden’s emergency diplomatic mission to the Middle East, with Arab leaders calling off their planned summit with him.
Palestinian officials blamed an Israeli air strike for the blast, which they said had killed as many as 500 people. Israel said the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which denied blame.
Speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said: “I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion of the hospital in Gaza yesterday, and based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.”
“But there’s a lot of people out there not sure, so we’ve got a lot, we’ve got to overcome a lot of things,” Biden added.
“The world is looking. Israel has a value set like the United States does, and other democracies, and they are looking to see what we are going to do.”
Biden’s trip to the Middle East was designed to calm the region, even as he demonstrated U.S. support for its ally Israel, which has vowed to annihilate the Hamas movement whose fighters killed 1,400 Israelis in a rampage on Oct. 7.
After Biden’s remarks that Israel was not to blame, other Western leaders also called for caution.
“Last night, too many jumped to conclusions around the tragic loss of life at Al Ahli hospital,” Britain’s Foreign Secretary James Cleverly posted on X. “Getting this wrong would put even more lives at risk. Wait for the facts, report them clearly and accurately. Cool heads must prevail.”
World leaders from U.N. Secretary General Guterres to Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the blast in statements that nonetheless avoided addressing who was to blame.
The blast unleashed new fury across the Middle East.
Palestinian security forces fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse anti-government protesters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, seat of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, one of the Arab leaders who cancelled a meeting with Biden.
The U.S. State Department issued a new warning to Americans not to travel to Lebanon, where border clashes between the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and Israel over the past week have been the deadliest since the last all-out war in 2006.
Biden has strongly backed Israel following the Oct. 7 attacks. But he is under intense pressure to win a clear Israeli commitment to alleviate the plight of civilians in the Gaza Strip, where 2.3 million Palestinians are under total siege, with no access to food, fuel, water or medical supplies.
The Israeli military announced on Wednesday that humanitarian aid would be made available in a “humanitarian zone” in Al-Mawasi on the south of the Gaza Strip coast near the Egyptian border. It did not spell out how aid would get there.
(Additional reporting by Reuters)
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